It's a portfolio management problem! Out of all the factors involving pricing, what factors should the product management team focus on? Yep, we should select the factors that will have the most impact to us, to our organization, our customers, potential customers, and our competitors.  The book is titled "Impact Pricing: Your Blueprint for Driving Profits", by Mark Stiving. I believe it's a must read for all Product Management team members this year.

The book makes a foundational case for value-based pricing. This is how our customers make choices. Value-based pricing reminds us that value comes from differentiation. Differentiation increases competitive advantage. Building competitive advantage is the primary duty of everyone on the product management team.

The second part of the book is about pricing segmentation. Yes, charging different prices for the same offering but in different segments. You don't have to nor should you price your products at the lowest common denominator across all segments.

The third part of the book focuses on versioning. Versioning uses product features to help segment markets on price. For me, I'm not sure I was with Mark until this part of the book. Let's say I had my doubts. It was here that it started to make sense.

The fourth part of the book was how to avoid price increases. He even suggests planning ahead to avoid this in the future.

For me this diagram drives the point of his book. The more centered pricing becomes in your product management processes, the more impact pricing can have on your competitive advantage.

I've included the Table of Contents for you review.

Part One

1. Vision: See where your pricing needs to go

2. Pricing strategies: A first glance

3. Value: What is your product worth

4. Value-based pricing: Mandatory to maximize profits

5. Create Value: Let pricing guide you

6. Costs matter: But not how you think

Part Two

7. Introduction to price segmentation: Rich and Poor

8. Customer Characteristics: Who are you?

9. Customer Behaviors: Jump this hurdle

10. Transaction characteristics: At point of purchase

11. Loyalty and price segmentation: treat your best customers the best

Part Three

12. Versioning: Develop the right product line

13. Complementary products: Linking and leveraging

14. Free: How to get paid for free

Part Four

15. Introduction to pricing dynamics: Customer expectations

16. Responding to the economy: The 800-pound gorilla

17. Responding to competitors: Darn them

18. Product Life cycle: Prices change with age

It's a short book (150-something pages), but covers a lot of meaningful concepts. This is what I'd suggest. Watch the Ryma webinar the author hosted first, then get a copy of the book and read it. Then have your teammates do the same. At this point, all of you will be in a position to make changes and plan out a journey that will be fun, plus deliver powerful rewards. If you don't do anything else this year, this one initiative would make the whole year.